Quilfish and Chips
by T1meslayer
Summary: When Sonia was invited to lunch by an old friend, she figured it would be a good chance to warn Nessa about those up-and-coming Gym Challengers from Postwick. She did not expect the Water-type expert to inadvertently draw out the worst of her self-doubt. My first attempt at a Pokémon Sword and Shield fic. Rated 'T' for mild language and angst-ridden romance plotting.


_**Pokémon Sword and Shield have been out for a while now. Long enough for my preferred character pairings to be solidified by both cute and angst-ridden fanfiction ideas that I've gotten up in a cold sweat at 1:00 a.m. to jot down on my notes app. I absolutely adore the Galar region so far, but I haven't had enough energy to sit down and flesh out my growing catalog of ideas in writing just yet.**_

_**That said this particular idea has gotten a strong vote of confidence from my real-life friends Mitchell and Jonathan. So I'm going to start here and save my many ideas for Marnie and the protagonist character (Victor? According to Bulbapedia) for another day.**_

_**Fair warning: The Britishisms are a big part of Sword and Shield's charm in my opinion, but I can't promise I'll be great at emulating them due to my Yankee upbringing. Don't yell at me if they sound too Americanized on this first attempt.**_

_**Cool? Cool.**_

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The salty-aired port town of Hulbury is one of the busiest places in Galar year-round. It boasts a thriving commercial fishing scene and is situated along the cusp of a Wishing Piece mine; providing the very materials used by the Macro Cosmos Corporation to power the Region.

Hulbury also hosts one of Galar's most popular Gym Leaders, whose effervescent fans span the world over: From the shining spire of Rose Tower in Wyndon to the smallest burrows of Solaceon Town in Sinnoh.

The curving, water-worn cobblestone sidewalks of the gentrified shantytown were particularly busy come the yearly Gym Challenge, when endorsed Pokémon Trainers and spectators alike came to enjoy battles with that ever-popular Gym Leader Nessa.

Technical Records, incense and herbal medicines were in short supply thanks to the influx of tourists bombarding the small farmer's market. Fishing boats were kept docked longer so their owners could sell excess wares and offer tours of the bay to curious passing folk. The rickety wooden docks that shook with the sounds of excitement coming from the Stadium nearby had all its public tackle boxes raided by amateur Pokémon anglers looking to catch Arrokuda — or Chinchou, if they were lucky and fancied a shot at beating Nessa's Water-type team. Flocks of Wingull swarmed to pick apart crumbs thrown about by giggling children, filling an otherwise cloudless sky around the town's candy-cane lighthouse with a dancing storm of feathers.

Yet Hulbury's most iconic seafood establishment, the Captain's Table, remained a peaceful hallmark of fine dining despite the hustle-and-bustle just beyond its oak doors.

The Captain's Table may as well have been plucked from the dreams of every little boy and girl who longed to become The Little Milotic growing up. It was as upscale as could be, with teal and pink décor accented by immaculate tile flooring. Water-type Pokémon hid in every corner; from Wishiwashi, Horsea and Luvdisk silhouetted in the floor and support beams, to Clamperl-shelled chairs at every table and a popular painting of a moon-glazed Krabby commissioned from Unova's own Bug-type expert Burgh.

None of which truly took a guest's breath away like the immense cerulean-curtained window that formed the entire back wall of the restaurant, offering a perfect view of Dynamax Pokémon emerging from the top of Hulbury Stadium.

This atmosphere complimented the restaurant's world-renowned menu, making it popular with celebrities both local and exotic. It had even been said the Captain's Table is one of a select few seafood experiences approved by Siebold of the Kalos Elite Four.

Residents of Hulbury often had to order their food to be delivered on account of the restaurant so often being booked out by one of these celebrities.

Today was no different.

Behind the reception desk that was fashioned to look like an old pirate's vessel sat Nessa and Sonia, granddaughter of Galar's Pokémon Professor. The couple's laughter filled the barren establishment and left them ignorant of the stumpy, humanoid Indeedee waiting their table — always psychically knowing when a glass needed to be refilled.

The town's dark-skinned Gym Leader was slumped back on the cross-stitched booth-seat with her back to the windowed wall, dressed as though she were ready to run out and face a Gym Challenger at any moment. Her uniform, which was fashioned like a two-piece swimsuit, left little of the part-time model's form to the imagination. It also left plenty of space open to adorn her golden jewelry, each piece beautiful and expensive.

Sonia, by contrast, was dressed far more modestly as she doubled over the table with tears welling in her eyes. Her sleeveless, midriff-exposing green tank top and the tops of her skinny jeans were covered up by a bulky brown coat that she elected not fling over the back of her chair alongside her purse.

As the Professor-in-training straightens her back out and rubs the wetness from her right eye, she manages to speak through sporadic giggles.

"I'm tellin' you Ness. These blokes'll be way more of a threat than that loser."

Nessa leans forward on her fists as Sonia pulls away, bending her elbows on the table around the white napkin folded like a Remoraid's mouth atop her plate.

"So you're saying they didn't pick up a full team of Rolycoly back by Turffield?"

Sonia looks away from Nessa's sharp-toothed grin with a scoff and starts twirling the long ponytail of orange hair hanging off the left side of her head.

The Gym Leader's seafoam green eyes gravitate toward the movement and watch as Sonia jostles the heart-shaped pins dotted throughout the fluffy orange locks.

"Well… They might've. But I have a little more faith in those scamps!"

"I wouldn't have too much faith in them. Leon's chosen or not, you go ahead and ask Kabu how many Trainers he's seen since I took over this place."

"Pretty, strong _and_ full of hot air?" Sonia starts with a chuckle that is hard to suppress without biting her lower lip. "It's a wonder why you haven't been asked to endorse that Drifblim delivery service yet."

"Oi!" Nessa interjects, stomping one of her silly life preserver-themed sandals against the floor with a grin. "You shut your gob, Sonia. I brought you here to catch up, not to chin flap before I have to go thrash some children."

"Funny, I thought you brought me out here to eat something."

The pale, orange-haired girl sticks her tongue out, and Nessa rolls her eyes.

"Fine then."

As Nessa straightens herself out, she folds her hands politely in front of her plate and puts on the most posh accent she can to address the Indeedee with upward-pointing horns who came right when they needed him.

"Two plates of the Quilfish and Chips, garson! And tell Emily to add extra Gigantamix please."

The Pokémon bows before turning its natural scowl away and waddling back to the kitchen.

When Nessa looks at Sonia again, she'd find the other girl awkwardly scratching at her chin.

"Erm..." She begins softly. "That dish isn't actually made with Quilfish, is it?"

Nessa rolls her eyes again, the corners of her lips curling up.

"You're daft if you think so. Those lucky babies are too poisonous to eat!"

"But then—"

"Because the stuff expands in your gullet like one!" Nessa chimes, leaving Sonia looking like a Stantler in headlights by cutting off the obvious next question. "Trust me, you'll be full for a week after this."

The Professor's Granddaughter settles out of her brief shock with another giggling laugh and reaches out to palm the flat-topped sunglasses she left on the table.

"I swear you get worse and worse every time we get together, Ness."

She picks up the glasses and starts examining the lenses. Her eyes are quickly distracted by the wild hunt for scratches and grime.

"Try not to get too full though, you hear? I'm not joshing you about Leon's kid brother and his pal. They're really determined!"

While Sonia carries on, Nessa's eyes are fully focused on the girl. Her mind was clearly washing over every word with the frothy wash of an imagined, paradisiacal beach. One she could picture the two of them sitting at in perfect detail thanks to her noting every loose strand of hair and recording every curious mannerism. The words Sonia spouted meant nothing, but her voice was more heavenly to absorb than any piece of muzak composed to flood the ambient space around them.

Eventually the redhead catches on and hushes up, snapping her fingers in front of Nessa's face to try and pull her out of that daze.

"Oi, air head." Her voice is a bit spiteful. "Got your head in the clouds?"

The Gym Leader shrugs and brushes strands of both her black and teal-colored hair out of her lightly painted face.

"I'll level with you Sonia. I wasn't paying any attention there." When the other girl lets off an offended scoff, Nessa smirks. "I was kind of hoping to avoid the battle talk, you know? I'll be doing the bloody stuff all afternoon."

Sonia hums aggressively while drumming her right hand's fingers on the table.

"What would you rather talk about if you really don't want this killer advice?"

Nessa's smile softens.

"It's been ages since you've come up to Hulbury. Tell me how life's been!"

"To be fair…" Sonia almost immediately throws back with a salty undercurrent and a smirk of her own. "It's been a long time since you've come down to Wedgehurst too, you know? I'm not the only one at fault."

"Hey I've got a Gym to run, missy." She shrugs, crossing her arms on the table. "Not as easy to pop about as when we were doing our League Challenge."

"I know, I know." Sonia huffs and leans forward as well, mimicking Nessa's table-leaning pose. "Really miss those days sometimes, know what I mean?"

"Mmhm."

Her quick agreement leads into a somewhat long silence. The two girls let the ambient muzak and distant Wingull calls wash over them while gazing into one another's eyes. The pure jade crystal of Sonia's meeting the soft, blue-green shoreline of Nessa's.

Then the Gym Leader leans forward, and chastely presses their lips together.

The kiss only lasts for a brief, toe-curling moment before the shock catches up to Sonia and pulls her upper body away; her eyes wide as the restaurant's plates.

Nessa keeps her upper body bent over the table for a moment longer and purses her lips when the other girl denies the moment.

"What?" She asks gently. "Too much?"

Sonia's gears turn as hard as they can between her ears, but it still takes her a long time to come to her senses.

In the meantime, the best she can get out are awkwardly flubbed mutterings.

"Bu- uhh…" She clears her throat. "Ness… How long have you…"

"Probably since the first moment I saw you on the pitch in Motostoke Stadium."

Nessa's words are clinically devoid of emotion as she looks away from her stuttering friend; begrudgingly ready to play the game of 20 questions she assumed would be coming.

"Well… Why didn't you say anything?"

The Gym Leader shrugs, leaving the nervous redhead shuttering and twirling her ponytail more frantically.

"You and Leon seemed destined to be a couple back in the day," she remarks with a bit more vulnerability squeaking out. "Figured you were off snogging in a tent somewhere whenever you were helping him 'find his way' around Galar."

The mental image Nessa paints leaves Sonia squirming in her seat.

"Leon and I? I… I mean maybe I thought…"

She cuts herself off and then rapidly shakes her head, shuffling to sit on her hands so she could try and relax.

"No." She says rather definitely on the matter, drawing Nessa's wayward gaze back to that orange hair.

Though it was harder to see against her dark skin, Nessa was flushed as she leans in to hear more.

"No. No, no. Nonono. Nah-uh."

"No?" Nessa interjects as an emphasized question with a smirk, as though she won an argument.

But then Sonia stops sounding like a broken record player, and her words wipe that smirk away.

"No! No, there's no way you can like me like that Nessa."

At first the Gym Leader stares blankly, her emotions obscure as she blinks and rolls the words around in her head. The longer she mulls them over, however, the faster her lips and eyes scrunch into a suspicious glare.

"I didn't realize Professor Magnolia raised you to be one of _those_ people, Sonia."

Sonia boils under that intense glare for a good few seconds before the implicating words settle in. Her eyes widen again and she brings her hands up defensively.

"I don't mean it like that! You're uhh… Allowed to like girls like that, Nessa." She swallows back her nerves. "Obviously."

Nessa rolls her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest. From there she lets her single glove-covered right hand trail up to play with the spherical blue gemstone hanging around her neck.

"Obviously," she mimics with more venom in her tone.

The redhead shakily sighs and looks away, hands over the stomach of her brown coat where she can idly play with the buttons.

"I just mean… You can't like _me_ like that."

The extra emphases put on her self-referring causes Nessa to raise a curious eyebrow, hiding more of her blue eyeshadow.

"Who the hell are you to tell me who I can and can't bloody-well like, Sonia?"

Lacking the courage to meet her friend's gaze again, Sonia continues staring down at the table, slightly off to the left. Her words come out hoarse, as if forcibly mined from the lump weighing down her stomach.

"Exactly," she mumbles. "Who am I, Ness?"

The black-and-blue-haired girl tilts her head, curious to hear more.

Sonia squirms under the uncomfortable silence and continues.

"You're a Gym Leader, and a famous model. Loved and respected by everyone in Hulbury and the world." She takes a deep breath and shakes her head while letting it out. "I've been living with my Gran for bloody ages without any kind of purpose in life. Any direction to go in."

With that she finally meets Nessa's more sympathetic gaze, tears blurring her vision.

"A waste of space."

"Sonia…" Nessa mutters, letting the name trail off her tongue.

"Don't try to convince me otherwise," Sonia insists. "The only reason I'm here in the first place is 'cause Gran got sick of me feeling sorry for myself after Yamper and I couldn't cut it as a Trainer. She thinks chasing some dumb legend is an ass-backwards way of resuscitating my life, and so far all I've been able to find is a statue in a kitchy tourist-trap hotel and carvings in a hillside we've all seen a billion times on the telly."

After Sonia's self-deprecating tirade winds down into a sniffling, breathy couple of beats, Nessa spends a moment watching her friend try to reconstitute herself: Rubbing the tears off her cheeks and trying to pat away the redness they'd taken on, brushing down her coat and sniffling back the mucus that threatened to drip from her nose.

Then she rests her hands on the table and stands up with a heavy gravitas, sighing as she does.

The Gym Leader makes her way around the table so she can sit next to Sonia, despite the redhead watching fearfully and trying to scoot away. Once she settles into the Clamperl-shelled chair beside the other girl, she locks their eyes again.

Sonia grips the knees of her light blue jeans hard, waiting for some reassurance.

"You're right."

Those words following Nessa's drawn-out pause shock Sonia again, sending a shiver up her spine.

"I'm… Right?"

Nessa nods.

"I can't possibly love you, Sonia."

Even though the words had come out of her mouth in the first place, Sonia's jaw falls slack as she stares heartbroken at her friend's quiet, serious expression. Why not stick a few more daggers in while you're at it, she thought.

But then Nessa reaches out and lays a calming hand onto Sonia's left hand, pressing it down against her jeans.

"Not until you learn to love yourself."

Sonia's pain melds with confusion, and it's written all over her face.

"What…?"

"I adore you, Sonia."

The Gym Leader brings her hand up to rest it against the pale girl's cheek. Sonia inadvertently pulls her neck back at the cold touch against her puffy, hot skin, but leans into the gesture soon enough.

"Every moment I can remember of us traversing Galar together all those years ago is a treasure. But if you're truly this lost, all the compliments in the world I can and would so easily shower upon you would just come across as empty platitudes."

Sonia's confused expression melts into shame as she tries to look away.

But Nessa keeps her head steady with that gloved hand and presses their foreheads together.

"I can wait for you to find your purpose, Sonia; to find your reason for being and pull your life together. Until then I couldn't possibly ask you to share a shattered existence with me." Sonia sniffles back another sob, and Nessa smiles.

"It would be unfair to you."

"Ness…" Sonia mumbles, voice warbling as she clearly tries not to break down.

"I can't tell you what you want — or need — to be," the Gym Leader continues while comforting her friend by slowly, calmingly running a hand through her orange hair. "But if you get too lost in the fog, just remember I'm here. I'm here, and always ready to run the lighthouse if you need my guidance."

The analogy brings a messy, wet giggle out of Sonia's throat. Once it escapes she has to take another moment to reconstitute herself, at risk of breaking down again.

Nessa gives her this moment by gently kissing the other girl's forehead and running both hands through her hair once more.

Then she stands up and stretches her arms; long model figure catching the light.

"Where are you going?" Sonia asks with a mousy, desperate tone.

"Well there are some poor blokes from Postwick coming to get their arses handed to them." She smiles down at Sonia's frown. "Someone has to prove my friend wrong about their prospective Championship, no?"

Without another word, Nessa turns on the heels of her sandals and saunters off to the front of the restaurant.

Just before pushing the doors open, she glances over her shoulder and offers Sonia a warm smile. Then she kisses the exposed fingers of her gloved hand and blows that kiss across the room.

Sonia pretends to catch it with both hands before looking down at them, still not believing she deserved anything nearly as grand.

"Enjoy your meal, love. It's on me."

Nessa pushes the door open, letting cheerful and adoring voices flood inside the quiet establishment like a tsunami.

It closes with a solid thud, sealing the room in silent once again.

The Professor's Granddaughter stares at the front doors for another two minutes, expecting Nessa to burst in and proclaim this was all a wild dream that would now transition into a sexy pillow-fight or something.

But this was not a dream. Nor was her pain going to end anytime soon.

She drops her head like a stone into her crossed arms on the table and groans.

"Damnit Sonia… Why do you have to be such a fucking idiot…"

Her sharp curse is punctuated by a long, drawn-out moan. That moan is interrupted by the nearby sounds of sloshing liquid.

She peaks out of her peripheral vision to discern the source of that sound, and finds the Indeedee waiter by her side. This time he was pouring a rather large glass of red wine instead of refilling her empty water.

Sonia sits up straight with a sigh and rubs her sleeve under her nose before offering the stone-faced Pokémon a smile.

"Thank you," she mutters.

For once, it seemed that thing pre-empting her every need was appreciated.

After putting her flat-topped sunglasses back up above her forehead, Sonia grabs the stem of her newfound wine glass and eagerly drinks the stuff down.

She only gets about a quarter in before the restaurant's doors open again, making her practically spit everything up in the follow-through of her earlier anticipation.

But Nessa is not the person letting the cacophony of the outside world in.

Instead Sonia finds a pear-shaped man in a tight, messy and grey athletic shirt that clashed wildly with his polka dotted blue shorts and black Stadium cap covering what was clearly a comb over.

The man breathed a sigh of relief as he gets away from a swarm of photo-capturing Rotom Phones outside.

An intense-looking woman with long, dirty blonde hair and a white coat over a red blouse that was French tucked into her black leggings follows behind the man, ensuring the door was closed in his wake.

Sonia watches the mismatched pair with a blank, confused stare until the disheveled man's sunglass-covered eyes land on her.

He grins.

"Well, if it isn't Professor Magnolia's girl! Sonia, isn't it?"

As soon as she heard the voice she knew she was looking at Rose: Chairman of the Galar Pokémon League; President of the Macro Cosmos Corporation; Genius billionaire philanthropist.

Sonia begins to drink more of her wine while feigning a smile against the glass.

This was going to be a long afternoon.

"You know that young boy Victor, right? The one Leon endorsed?" Rose laughs warmly as he and his assistant, Oleana, begin to circle around to Sonia's table.

"What say you and I have a little chat while he finishes his battle with Nessa."

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_**Hey again, thanks for taking the time to read this!**_

_**To be completely honest, I wasn't a big fan of Nessa upon her announcement. Her design seemed so close to Shelly from Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire that I was afraid they wouldn't do too much to make her stand out as the Water-type expert.**_

_**Yet she really grew on me. Not only is she a card-carrying member of the Pokémon Lighthouse Keeper's club, but also the Model's club. Two great archetypes rolled into one!**_

_**Add on references to her friendship with Sonia, whose self-doubt compliments the overachieving Gym Leader perfectly, and the excuses for angsty, romantic shenanigans wrote themselves.**_

_**That's just my take though. I'm still the head cheerleader for Team Yell in regards to my favorite newcomer from the Sword and Shield cast.**_

_**If you were a fan of this or any of my other stories, I'm also in the business of taking commissions for some creative writing. Go ahead and hit up the info in my profile or just shoot me a private message if you're interested.**_

_**Hope you have a great day!**_

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**Featured Image courtesy of PaulWenzel via Wikimedia Commons**


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